Bikes Outside: Electro-Luxe

The first Bike Outside of 2011 is the bike of the future, at least according to some bike industry types. Electric assists are supposed to be the next big thing in cycling as baby boomers lose leg muscle and resolve to parasitic nanorobots activated by the musical stylings of Jethro Tull. I may have misheard a detail or two as the industry type/ E-bike apologist was explaining this (he was a tad dull) but that's really the gist of what he was saying.

I've never ridden an E-bike, though I do get asked about them periodically (usually by Baby Boomers, actually). I visited a shop that specializes in them during my Portland sojourn. The staff and customers were all very friendly, and really, really excited about electric bike power. I would have been unsurprised if one of the shop customers handed me an E-bike tract and attempted to convert me on the spot.

While I confess to desperately longing for an electric assist during my ill-fated journey to Coventry this past September, I'm normally not particularly drawn to them. That's neither here nor there, really. The important thing is that it got the owner of this particular bike out and about in the wake of Hartford's first decent snowfall of the winter. The owner of this step-through Schwinn seems to be a regular at the Behind The Rocks shopping center where I spotted it, as the security guard who rolled up to see what I was doing knew too much about the owner and the bike to have retained it all from a single conversation.

The front hub motor seems like the most popular setup in the E-bike universe. It kind of makes it look like the bike has a drum brake up front. (especially some of the larger ones). The few I've seen (including this one) have been equipped with rim brakes, but I feel like a hub that large ought to have a brake built into it as well. I'd like to build an electric motor hub into a 20" wheel (perhaps for a Cycle Truck or an unnecessarily ungainly folding bike) The giant hub-to-rim ratio with tiny spokes would end up looking like the front wheel of an old racing Norton, which I consider to be a good thing. I'm not holding my breath for people to beat a path to my door for custom e-bike wheels, but with MSRP's for bikes like this Schwinn in the $2,000-$3,000 range, I can see the appeal of retrofits and DIY conversions.

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Bikes Outside: Fuller Wheels

Alfred C. Fuller was hardcore. According to several online biographical statements, the founder of the Fuller Brush Company -- what was the Hartford factory location is now the CT Works Center -- did not play around. His philosophy for running a business can be summed up in his own words: "There was no loafing on the job, no fringe benefits that encouraged idleness." Thus, it is appropriate that the largest number of bicycles found on the University of Hartford campus were located around the building named after this man.

The Fuller Music Center houses the Hartt School, which is where some of the hardest working students on campus can be found. Besides working hard, they have a lot of schlepping to do, which might explain the number of bicycles.


It's also likely that students majoring in the performing arts have longer commutes to their classes, as the new Handel Performing Arts Center is located off of the main campus, down on the corner of Albany Avenue and Westbourne Parkway. Biking sure is better than waiting for a shuttle bus.

There was also a giant menorah on campus. No bikes were locked to it.
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Bikes Outside: Bike Ballet

Exhibit A: Genderfuck bicycle. Note the bold fuchsia paint job that is paired with a deep blue crate.

Exhibit B: The font is bubbly, script, and ultimately, girly; yet, the tires say "move out the way before I run you down."


Exhibit C: Bicycle parking itself at rack where light pink ballet slippers are tied.

Verdict: Awesome. One fewer student in the Blue Hills neighborhood using a car to transport him/herself across campus.

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Eeled

Eight intrepid young cyclists met on Saturday morning and took part in The Eel. Some of us we were beset by mechanical problems: broken spoke, broken cable housing and broken toe clip. Some of us were waylaid by dinner plans. The mud was deep and train tracks bumpy. Only five made it back to Hartford. I only took one picture, well two if you count the picture of the Chili Mango that I bought in Glastonbury, because the events of The Eel are more the stuff of epic poetry than digital photography.

The bonus sections, Loomis trails and Hockanum Boardwalk, were left out, so it ended up only being 55 or so miles.

All of this eeling begs the question of what the next event should be. Any suggestions?

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Hey Whippersnapper,

It's not enough that you had to go tearing across traffic and then the wrong way on a one-way street. I was willing to overlook that, ignore your lack of helmet and bad fashion sense. But at some point, someone needs to intervene. Maybe your momma is too tired from workin' it all day to raise you up right. Maybe your father is in jail. Or worse, maybe he taught you to do this. In any case, I will be unable to sleep at night if I do not say something.

You're doing it wrong.

Your saddle is wrong. So wrong that I almost choked on the lunch I was eating as I watched you speed by. As I'm sure you know, all manner of depraved kink can be located on the internet. Take this as a sign. If one searches for "backwards bike saddles" on Google images, nothing of the sort resembling your rig appears in the first hundred or so photos. If it's too kinky for a search sans filters, it's too kinky for a boy your age.

There is nothing macho about flipping the saddle around so that you risk impaling yourself with one wrong move. Now, maybe because I'm an old bag, or whatever you youngsters today would call me, you might think I know nothing. To indulge you in that fantasy, I did some research. Jim Langley, who I'm sure has his sphincter intact, notes that:

"If the nose of the seat bothers you, tip the seat down 1 to 3 degrees. Don’t overdo it because a tipped seat will cause your body to shift forward putting added pressure on the knees and preventing the seat from supporting your weight adequately. If the nose bothers you enough that you want to tip is excessively, try different seat designs."

See how he never says that you should flip the nose of the saddle complete around and tilt it skyward? Sheldon Brown, another expert who presumably has not ripped himself a new hole, says:

"The angle of the saddle should be pretty close to horizontal. Some men prefer the front to be slightly higher than the rear; some women prefer the front slightly lower than the rear, but extreme angles should be avoided."

See? No extreme angles. Peter Jon White, yet another expert, says:

"In order to fit a bicycle, you need a saddle you can sit ON."

One website states the obvious: "Bicycling is supposed to be fun, not painful."

Nobody gets street cred by landing in the emergency room with a saddle up his ass. Nobody. Read more!

Bikes of the future

As Will now pedals around on whatever it is that he's pedaling around on, here's another view of what's to come in bicycles. It's been reposted on a few other blogs and now it's on here.

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Also, I finally got a new cell phone, so I can start putting some "taken by me pictures" in my posts. (Yes, I don't own a real camera.) Read more!

The New Year, Part 2

My posts are generally narcissistic, like yesterday's. I was gonna do that again today and write about the ride I took last night. But, in a moment of clarity, I remembered that this blog isn't just about me. Hell, there are a bunch of other bloggers who write way more interesting and funny than me all the time. Instead, I thought about the direction of the beat bike blog as it enters a new year. Our founder and most chillest blogger, Will, has left for beautiful environs of Key West. Does that leave us without keel for '09? Probably. So, what now? In 2008, we wrote about a bunch of stuff, but also did some stuff, including, but not limited to:

• 2 races
• cleaning up the river
• making critical mass a more viable thing in Hartford
• making critical mass not a nasty and contentious thing like it is in most other cities
• garnering press support (???)
  
• some other stuff that I'm probably forgetting
  

What should 2009 be about? Loyal reader(s), please tell us. Should we put together some more Hartford races? I'm definitely going to work on the 'cross race, but that's more a CCBA thing. Should we do something to promote more bike commuting? Should we raise money for a bike related cause? Should we start a trips for kids mountain biking program? Should we do something to get more youth involved with the whole riding a bike thing? Should we do none of that and reform are image into something cooler and angrier?

We're adrift! Please help!
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The New Year

I hate that Death Cab for Cutie song called "The New Year".

So, we're deep into 2009 and there hasn't been a post yet, so I guess I'll put something up. I haven't been doing much bike related lately. I put some studded Nokians on my Stumpjumper and rode it around in the snow some. The tires actually work pretty well on snowy things, though it seems that you can't ride in snow that's deeper than like 4" or 5". That seems pretty acceptable, though. The bike has rim brakes and they're pretty unacceptable in the snow.

I also have two bicycle related resolutions, or maybe they're goals.

1) Ride the D2R2.
I know that randoneuring is usually for people with helmet mirrors, but it also seems really difficult. So, I'm going to do the 108 mile edition of the D2R2.

2) Make a 'cross race happen in Hartford.
I put the bug in Ben Bare's ear for him to bring it up at the last Bike Everywhere and Jay and some others seem genuiely interested. I hope for Keney park, but most other people seem to want to do it at Riverside Park. Doesn't really matter to me as long as it happens.

Woodsy!

Anybody else got cool ideas and plans for 2009? Read more!